The Plague: The Black Death

This documentary clarified two aspects concerning the Black Death: the origins/spread of the plague, and what made it possible to survive the illness. First, one has to understand the Black Death started in the Middle Ages and it spread throughout the European continent. Around 1347, thirteen Genoese galleys entered the harbor of Messina, Sicily carrying the disease. Actually, the ships contained rats infected by flea that transmitted the tiny bubonic bacterium to the people on land. When the ships arrived at the harbor, it took only twelve months for the pandemic to kill a third of the population. Eventually, by January sixty percent of population in Marseilles die, and during spring seventy-five percent of people in Florence died. Around 1348, the plague approaches the shore of England, but was already installed in England before reaching the shore.

As a result of so much death, many families began to lose money and couldn’t keep businesses or pay taxes. Money in Europe had always been disturbed in this order: Kings, Barons, Knights and lastly, Serfs. As more and more people began to die, the distribution of money was uneven, and people of higher status began to lose their power. This also meant that people of lower status gained power as a result of difficulty to find workers. Due to this and the commonality of surplus land, the price of labor was raised, and the value of land decreased. The economy was being torn apart by deaths of every day people as well. Citizens who owed money died along with all of their family members, and their creditors had to one to collect from. Landlords in the country side stopped letting their serfs be free and tried to force more labor on them. Many peasants demanded higher wages, or fewer burdens. The Jacquerie in 1358, The Peasant’s Revolt in 1381, and the Catalonian Rebellion in 1395 all prove how seriously mortality had disrupted the economy. Revolts like these also damaged another key part of Europe: Social Relations.

The Black Death, also known as the bubonic plague, was a disease that devastated Medieval Europe, between 1346 and 1352 it killed 45 million people, wiping out a third of Europe's population. Today, we know that there were many causes of the Black Death. Medieval towns had no system of drains, sewers or trash collections. In such slovenly conditions, germs could grow, and diseased rats could call these medieval towns their homes and infect the people who lived there. Many historians believed the plague originated in china and spread to other countries by trade routes. Infected people and/or infected rodents such as mice or black rats. The Black Death was caused by strains of the bubonic plague. The plague lived in fleas, and fleas lived on

Cantor details how the plague changed social structure. The plague killed so many peasants that the remaining peasants were demanding lower rents and higher wages. There was a peasant revolt in 1381 which almost eliminated the royal government. Richard II had some of the peasant leaders killed, and the revolt was shut down. The result was a further divide between the classes. Wealthier peasants were able to take advantage of the "social dislocation caused by the plague, and poorer peasants sank further into dependence and misery" (p. 90-91). Peasants had formerly identified their place in society by who their lord was. Now that their world of feudalism was vanishing, they felt displaced, confused and anxious (p. 100). "Violence, drunkenness, and physical accidents were prevalent" (p. 95).

What is the significance of Black Death to the Italy, Russia and the entire Europe? This gravely illness had great impacts. In fact, the gruesome signs and deadliness, have over time fixed the Black Death in very extraordinary imagination among many people. Over decades scholars has discovered various impacts of the disease on the economy, social and cultural lives of the natives of the affected areas. It is clear that the Black Death is important to the Europeans because it changed their economy to better. This essay analyzes the Black Death and also illustrated the significance of the plague.

The black death first appeared in the Middle East and Europe in 1348. The black death swept through Asia and continued west and northwest through North Africa, Europe and the Middle East (Document 1). The black death was transmitted via fleas living in the fur of the black rat. The black death actually refers to the bubonic, pneumonic and septicemic plagues. The most common of these three strains was bubonic. Some symptoms

There were three major outbreaks of the Black Death pandemic in the world. In the history the Black Plague is also called as the Black Death or Bubonic Plague. This research paper will mainly cover the European outbreak of the 14th century as it is considered to be the era of the worst time of the Black Death period. Many historians would agree that the events of 1300s led to dramatic changes affecting every European country in all the aspects. Creating economic, social, religious, and medical issues, the Black Death caused renovation of the Europe. New circumstances forced Europe to reconsider its political system, improve the medicine and look at the situation from a different perspective, shifting from the medieval to modern society. Paul Slack, in his book The Impact of Plague in Tudor and Stuart England, provides a detailed description of the most affected places and the approximation of the victims, estimating that Europe had lost about one third of its population. Comparing to cholera the number of deaths caused by the Black Plague in England is doubled making The Black Plague the most devastating disease (Slack 174). In the book, The Black Death, Robert Gottfried examines the history of the Black Plague and its political consequences as well as social. He introduces the facts how the European population was affected in both positive and negative ways. From his writing it stood out that the lower class was affected the most as the conditions they lived in were worse

This book offers a wide variety of information on the Black Death. Focused on the initial outbreak of the plague,

The Decameron is a frame narrative written by Boccaccio. He is writing about the Plague he witnesses in the city of Florence. The Plague is called the “Black Death” which kills thirty percent of Europe’s population. This story explains how serious this disease is because it shows how men and women fled from Florence to a countryside to prevent from catching it. The disease is carried by flees, unfortunately, there were rats on the ships heading to Europe, the flees would bite the rats and then the flees bite the humans who eventually contracted this disease. These people are not aware of this in this time period and have several different assumptions on what is really causing this outbreak. The uninfected talk about what the Black Death is, the causes of the disease, how contagious this plague is, and the effects it has on their society and their responses to the plague.

The Black Death started in China in the early 1330's. Since China was a major trading center, many rodents got clear access to leave and spread the disease to other countries' villages. They would travel on the ships to the other countries. They would also spread the disease to fleas, then that's how the people would get it. Once the disease was spread through trading, it went throughout Europe and infected the people around and through the villages there. When a village was infected with the plague, people would flee and look for new land if they didn't die. There were about 1,000 villages that were abandoned in England at that time. (textbook)

In October 1347 12 Genoese trading ships arrived at the Sicilian port of Messina. They had a long journey through the Black Sea, and most of the sailors did not make it. This is when the Black Death arrived in Europe. Those who arrived on the ships were either dead or gravely ill. They were covered in black boils that oozed, they had fevers, they were in excruciating pain that caused delirium, and there was no hope for them. The authorities ordered for the ships to be sent away, but it was too late. In the next five years, Europe would see almost one third of the continents population stolen by the “Black Death”.

The Black Plague first was found in Europe around the 1300’s, killing roughly about 25 million people. The disease was often carried by rats and their fleas. People contracted the plague when they were bitten by a flea that carried the plague bacteria from a rodent. The cause of plague was not discovered until the famous outbreak in China, in 1855. The first breakthrough came in Hong Kong, when researchers secluded the rodent bacteria, known as,Yersinia pestis.

The notorious Black Death in the fourteenth century is often described as the “great mortality” for its fatal infestation into Asia and Europe. The true impacts it had on the western civilization in one mere day is best described in the first excerpt “Day the First” in the historical text, The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio by Giovanni Boccaccio. Boccaccio greatly emphasizes the resulting civil disorder as an entire civilization crashed in one day, plagued by infamous Black Death. Not only did the plaque cause an unprecedented amount of deaths, it also caused a total shift in religious, social, and cultural frameworks present in the city of Florence Italy.

The Black Death was an epidemic disease that was also known as the Bubonic Plague. It was one of the most tragic epidemics that has happened in the world. The Black Death hit England between the years of 1348-1350. This plague annihilated one third of its original population. Trading ships that came to England during this time were blamed for the spread of this disease. People believed that when trading ships left other countries that they would bring in infested rats that carried the disease. When the rats would come in contact with a person or bit a person is believed to be the reason on why the deadly virus spread so quickly. Also many thought that the plague was airborne; when they thought this was the cause of the spreading of the

The Black Death, or bubonic plague, started out in the 1340s, and traveled through the major trade route, the Silk Road, across Eurasia. It spread through multiple ways, such as: victims with the Black Death, cargo from different places that have been carried to and from the trading routes, and through rodents and fleas. It had taken four years for the plague to stop its killings, although it decimated more than half of the European population, along with many other people from parts of Asia (Historic World Events).The absolute minimum number of deaths are thought to be 20 million, although many others say the disease could have taken 50 million lives (web.cn.edu).